Delhi Gymkhana Club: Government ends its subsidy to India’s aristocracy, writes Parvesh Verma | Opinion

THe unification authorities has ordered new delhi Gymkhana bludgeon, operating on authorities land, to hand over its entire premises by June 5, 2026. The order draws the curtains on the club’s more than century-old tale of colonial decadence, post-colonial privilege and an ever-present social and cultural apartheid.Not to forget the club’s long list of alleged financial irregularities, tax evasion & opaque management, inviting legal wrath from several courts or tribunals from time to time.Thus, the government’s order has ignited several debates around elitism, urban land-use, national security as well as de-colonisation.The order states how the club’s premises, “located in a highly sensitive and strategic area of Delhi, is critically required for the strengthening and securing of defence infrastructure and other vital public security purposes". It adds, “The land is essential to fulfil urgent institutional needs, governance infrastructure, and public-interest projects, integrated with the resumption of adjoining government lands.”In other words, the club’s government-owned land has a huge opportunity cost.Why then, can it not be used to fulfil the larger public interest than to subsidise aristocracy? If a country's common people, farmers or even the most marginalised sections of the society can offer their private land to the government for building national infrastructure such as highways, roads etc., why can’t the country’s socio-economic elite be expected to do the same? That too, when their sporting-cum-social club operates on government and not private land.The topic pits the indulgences of a privileged few against the larger public interest.Moreover, there have been several instances of financial impropriety and tax evasion by the club that has been reprimanded, penalised and held guilty for them by several courts, authorities or tribunals.To mention a few, the Delhi government, in 2014, had moved to seize the bank accounts of the club for its failure to pay luxury tax for several years. Later that year, the club invited the wrath of Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) for inadequate waste management, absence of rainwater harvesting, and illegal use of borewells. The DPCC had thereupon ordered the club’s immediate closure, and the National Green Tribunal had imposed a heavy fine.Then, in 2021, the NCLAT had dissolved the governing council of the club on account of gross mismanagement, following which the Union government had to take over its administration and management.The NCLAT’s order described the seriousness of the situation when it said, “Under the garb of the distinctive character of the club which is a relic of the imperial past, the doors for membership are virtually limited to people having blue blood in their veins thereby perpetuating apartheid and shattering the most cherished Constitutional goal of securing social justice and equality of status and opportunity...”It is interesting how despite the club’s memorandum of association stating its main objective being “to promote polo, hunting, racing, tennis and other games, athletic sports and pastimes”, only 2.77% of the club’s money was spent on sports from 2014-15 to 2018-19, whereas an extraordinarily higher sum was spent on catering, wine, beverages and cigarettes instead.Not to forget the club’s opaque and arbitrary membership rules and barriers to entry, rendering it a place for the few, by the few, of the few but at everyone else’s expense.Thus, Gymkhana’s story is that of the government loaning its land to the national elite, to run their social exclusivity projects with financial impunity, in the name of tradition.Is subsidising the national elite’s “sheeshmahal” of indulgences the best use of 27 acres of prime government land in the national capital?Another important point is the club’s location.Why is it necessary to have a social-cum-sporting club right adjacent to a location as sensitive and secure as the current house of India’s Prime Minister? Even if one were to accept the utility of such a club, for argument’s sake, surely there are better locations to set up such a facility where it does not obstruct or hamper the larger public interest.Thus, the government’s decision is a long overdue course-correction.I remember how the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned in his Independence Day speech in 2022, the panch-pran (five pledges) to make India a developed country by 2047. One of the pledges was the eradication of the colonial mindset that has long plagued our country even after Independence in 2047. The government’s decision is another example in a long list of decisions since 2014.From installing Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s statue at the canopy beside India Gate, that once hosted a statue of the British monarch King George V, to renaming the Rajpath as Kartavya Path, from renaming Raj Bhavans (Governors' residences) to Lok Bhavans, to removing the British symbols from the insignia of our national defence forces, the Modi government has made India’s governance, more Indian than before.The decision to take over Gymkhana Club is a step in that direction too.After all, one cannot disagree that ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ must take precedence over ‘Kuch ka Sath, Kuch ka Vikas’.--Parvesh Verma is a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and currently serves as the cabinet minister for public works department (PWD), water, and irrigation & flood control in the Government of Delhi. Opinions expressed in this article are his personal.